


Cold

by somerandomwritingstuff



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: (Jay PoV), Blood, Broken Bones, Bugs & Insects, Child Abuse, Death, Gen, Ghosts, Horror, MCD warning is because of that - he does not die in the story he is already dead, Mild Horror, Ponderings, Zane is a ghost, also i can't write horror so be aware of that, but it's not the main part of the story anyways, but the story is about death, ghost - Freeform, heed the archive warnings, i think, i think. idk man i'm just the author don't ask me, just in case someone filtered it out, or rather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:20:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26156395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somerandomwritingstuff/pseuds/somerandomwritingstuff
Summary: Never remind a ghost of how they died.
Relationships: None
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

> (Zane is not a nindroid in this and didn't die at the end of season 3 cause he was already dead, hence he wasn't kidnapped by Chen (Chen found another way to get the ninja to join).)

Never remind a ghost of how they died.

That’s what he always told us.

Because they’ll be reminded of the possibly worst event of their life.

It makes sense if you word it like that. I didn’t think of that before I asked him.

But Zane seemed so approachable about the fact that he was dead. The moment we met him he was open about it. Asked us if we needed help to find the shuriken of ice, said he knew his way around here, but he wasn’t entirely sure about how safe the way was for living people.

Living people. And he sort of phased towards us. He didn’t really walk, even though he can imitate that. I think he wanted to show us that he was a ghost, but I’m not too sure why.

Maybe it has to do with his sixth sense; maybe he knew Sensei was looking for him and hadn’t found him yet; maybe he knew Sensei would ask him to join our team. It’s not like he could fight physically. He could touch things, but that already needed his concentration way too much to properly fight.

He was helpful in other ways. He could keep an eye on the fight from wherever he went when he faded out of existence. He could phase right through a fight and help where one of us needed it most. And the guy can cook, you wouldn’t believe how good food can be.

Not to mention that he’s like crazy smart. Smarter than me, but he doesn’t know too much about technology, so at least I’m still the team’s mechanic. He doesn’t know much about anything to be honest. It can make things really fun, especially when we’re just talking about random stuff, as guys do, and we forget how Zane just doesn’t get it until he asks the most innocent question cause he’s never heard of sex. Yeah, we’re never playing ‘Never have I ever’ with him again.

I don’t even know how old he is, or how old he was when he died, but after that I kind of found out he apparently died as a child. I don’t know what was worse, that or the fact that he didn’t even know how old he was. I can’t even tell because he still refuses to show what he really looks like. I don’t think I even want to know how he died anymore.

He says he won’t show up as himself because Kai faints at the sight of blood.

And he said ghosts usually don’t appear from peaceful or painless deaths. He didn’t word it like that. But he said it.

I don’t know what happened to him, but I don’t like the implications.

I think he was in pain.

I even asked him, once. He just looked at me and asked me why I asked. Why it mattered. Then he told me he can’t feel pain now. As if that made everything better. I guess to him it did.

I can’t imagine what pain he must have been in that he is so calm and relieved at his death. At his being dead.

He said he prefers it. He said had he known death was a thing he would have been dead way earlier.

I guess he’s happy like that. I just wish he had had a life that didn’t make him say that.

Was he scared? When he died? Did he know he was dying? Or did he only find out about death when he was already dead?

Was he in pain?

When he was alive, was he in pain?

Why?

Why was he in so much pain that he prefers death?

He didn’t deserve any of it.

He is the kindest soul. He always speaks softly, he only tries to make everyone happy, he just wants to help.

I don’t know what happened to him. I don’t know how he died.

I hope I will never find out.

* * *

Everything went wrong.

Chen had his staff, he already took our elements, and the only ones left who even still had their elements were Lloyd and Zane, whom he seemed to have forgotten entirely.

Let’s just hope whatever he tried to do doesn’t work without Zane’s magic.

Because Lloyd just lost.

I can’t believe Lloyd lost.

Chen just laughed at him and took Lloyd’s element.

I saw Zane scurry closer to us with a worried look on his face.

He was the only one left who still had his element.

I think we both had the same idea of hiding his element and hoping Chen’s magic didn’t work without it because he just faded out of existence.

But as Chen failed to use whatever spell he was trying to do, he seemed to remember Zane.

And even if his last attempt at a spell didn’t work, the staff seemed to provide him with enough magic to find Zane.

Zane faded back into existence and assumed a fighting stance. “If you really want to fight, then fight.”

Chen laughed. “Fight? You? You lost a totally different fight a long time ago, ghost.” Chen waved his staff and started to drain Zane’s element from him. “One with death itself! That’s more than I need.”

Zane covered a little from the drain, but it was of no use.

As the last bit of his element was drained from him, he did not fall to the ground. Nor did he move at all. He didn’t even fade out of existence as I had feared. He just stood there.

Until he started to shake. And even before Chen could think of trying his spell again, Zane spoke.

“Cold.”

Just that.

Just “Cold.”

And again.

And again.

And again and again and again and again.

“Cold.”

The ghost seemed to shrink into himself. He was shivering terribly. “Cold.”

He looked up at Chen, who was just about to put an end to this disturbance, when the ghost spoke again. This time, something else.

“You don’t even know what cold feels like.”

His voice sounded weird. There was no other way to describe it; it was simultaneously that he used before, but also that of a small child, and it sounded broken beyond repair, as if it came from a broken radio with no signal.

The ghost moved towards Chen, but he himself did not move one bit.

Instead, he changed. It looked like he was falling apart, shrinking together, and growing at the same time.

No.

He wasn’t growing. His hair was.

Suddenly, I could see him completely clearly. He was a child. He had long, unkept hair. He was terribly, terribly thin.

And the closer he got to Chen, the more broken he looked.

As if every bone in his body was broken.

Maybe they were.

He also got thinner, as if that were even possible in the first place.

Shortly before he arrived at Chen, he was merely broken bones and battered, wounded skin.

And then, the blood appeared.

The white little child became red as his own blood covered nearly every inch of his body.

Or at least I assumed it was his blood. I didn’t know people could bleed this much, but he didn’t look anywhere near capable of hurting anyone in this state.

The ghost raised his bloodied battered arm. “Do you want to know what cold really feels like?”

I nearly threw up as I saw a bug crawl over his hand. And then another over his arm. And another.

They came from everywhere. The walls were seeping bugs and what looked suspiciously like the poor ghost’s blood.

Just before the ghost touched Chen, the latter seemed to remember he had legs, but he didn’t get very far.

Bugs and blood and something white seemed to encircle him, to trap him.

Chen couldn’t even exclaim as the ghost touched him.

And he went pale, paler than any living being could get. And he screamed. Chen fell to the ground and was immediately covered in blood and bugs and whatever the white things were.

When Chen fell, the child let out a bloodcurdling scream. And he screamed and screamed and he wouldn’t stop.

And the walls carved in, and the ceiling fell, but it too decayed before it even hit the ground, and the ghost kept screaming and screaming.

And no-one could move. We were frozen on the spot, and I couldn’t tell you if it was ice powers or something else entirely, but it was getting so, so cold, and the ghost kept screaming, and there was decay and blood and bugs everywhere, and this white stuff, which looked ever more like bone shards the longer you looked.

And then it stopped.

For just one moment, everything stopped.

The bugs stopped crawling, the blood stopped flowing, the bones stopped with it, and the cold halted.

And the ghost child fell.

And cried.

The blood and the bugs and the bones retreated to him.

The wind I hadn’t even noticed until now died down.

And all that was left of the outburst was a sobbing child.

And a shivering Chen lying on the ground next to him, who just learned his lesson.

Never remind a ghost of how they died.

* * *

He was cold.

His own element.

I’m not stupid. He was bleeding out, who knows for how long until he died. He was cold because he didn’t have enough blood left inside of him to keep himself warm, theoretically I know that.

But, it’s one thing to know that, and another to know one of your best friends died like that. And then Zane, who never gets cold.

Maybe that’s for the best. As long as he had his element, he couldn’t feel cold.

Maybe that’s why he was so affected by being cold. He had probably never been cold. Maybe not even before he died.

I’m not stupid. I know now how he died. There was only one possible explanation. No fall from any cliff could ever get him this hurt.

He was murdered.

He was beaten to death.

A child.

Who could possibly dare hurt a child like that?

Were the bugs crawling over him as he died?

Was he scared?

Is that why he preferred death?

He must have been in so much pain.

And all he knew was shame. He didn’t look anyone in the eyes for weeks; he was so apologetic.

He didn’t mean for any of that to happen, but without his element he felt cold. And that reminded him so much of his death he couldn’t stop it.

And he was so upset; he was just a child.

It took him weeks to appear as the Zane we knew. He was too upset to keep the illusion of an adult up. He couldn’t even keep up an illusion of an unharmed child. Most of the time after his outburst he spent faded out of existence.

I’m fairly sure he did that to spare us of what he looks like.

He was too kind for his own good.

It really felt like we were haunted those few weeks.

Occasionally one of us would ask if Zane was there, and he always was. He never showed unless we asked him to, and even then he only faded slightly into existence to give us an idea of where he was.

Never more.

I said to him “I know not to remind a ghost of how they died,” I said, “Zane,” I said, “I think I know how you died,” I said, “and I know you shouldn’t be reminded,” I said, “but I have a few questions.”

I knelt down in front of him.

“Why,” I said, “and who,” I said, “and is he still alive?” I said.

It took a long time for Zane to answer.

When he did, it was slow and his voice sounded hoarse.

“He?”

I didn’t want to tell him what we saw. I thought back to when we played ‘Never have I ever’, back to when he asked what sex was. I never told him. And I didn’t want to upset him even more now by telling him he was raped, and we could see it.

I didn’t want to tell him his clothes were torn. I didn’t want to tell him we saw things on his body I never wanted to see on a child, and that was discounting the blood and bugs already.

So I just nodded. And never told him how I knew.

But then, he didn’t answer my questions either.

And I never asked again.

Because one thing I knew.

Never remind a ghost of how they died.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: the first part is exactly 666 words and that is on purpose yes


End file.
